Dean Hall, the developer behind ArmA II and DayZ, has taken to Twitter that he’s at his “wits end” trying to make a triple-A game in his native New Zealand.
Hall, who recently announced his new game, Ion, at E3, said that Immigration New Zealand is making his $20 million USD-budgeted development attempts a nightmare.
FACT: I want to make a 20mil budget AAA video game in NZ. FACT: spent six months with immigration still not able to convince them. sigh.
— Dean Hall (@rocket2guns) July 6, 2015
Speaking with Games.on.net, Hall furthered that Immigration New Zealand sees “no difference between software [development] or game [development]”, adding that the final nail in the coffin is a bureaucratic requirement to pay foreign graduates more than those from New Zealand.
“They want us to pay overseas [graduates] more than [New Zealand graduates],” Hall asserted. “I’m refusing. Same pay same job. Don’t care what their website says.”
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